07-03-11It was completely Yuvraj Singh's day at Bengaluru on Sunday. His all-rounder performance steered India to victory. He took taking 5 wickets and scored an unbeaten 50 in the match against Ireland at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Ireland were put to bat first by Mahendra Singh Dhoni after India won the toss. The match was viewed to be significant because of the stunning victory Ireland had claimed against England in its previous match.

But, Ireland was not able to spin-up any surprises this time. The Indian bowlers were able to pack-up the Irish side for 207 runs in 47.5 overs.

Yuvraj claimed 5 wickets, including that of Kevin O'Brien. Zaheer Khan took 3, Munaj Patel claimed 1 wicket and there was 1 run out.

In the second innings of the game, Indian opener Virendra Sehwag, lost his wicket to Johnston in the 1st ball of the second over. After that India lost 4 more wickets at regular intervals and successfully achieved the target.

210 runs were scored off 46 overs for the loss of 5 wickets. The match ended in India's favour with Yuvraj becoming the team's highest scorer at 50 runs in 75 balls.

06-03-11Sunday, 06-Mar-2011 - All Indian cricket fans are eagerly clued to their television sets, watching the match Ireland v/s India at the Bengaluru. The match has become especially interesting after Ireland humbled the English team.

The match has already started at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium at 2:30 in the afternoon.

India won the toss and opted to field first. Ireland innings has started on a bad note. It has lost two wickets early in the game and has been able to garner a meager score of 11 rungs at the end of 5 overs. Paul Stirling returned to the pavilion for a duck, where as Ed Joyce lost his wicket at a personal score of 4 runs.

Both the wickets were taken by the Indian pace bowler Zahir Khan.

Surely, a lot of expectations once again ride on the shoulders of Kevin O'Brien, the man who blasted the English bowlers for a whopping 113 in just 63 balls in the team's last match.

At the time of this writing Niall O'Brien and William Potterfield were on the field.

04-03-11Irrated fans stoned the bus carrying the West Indies team after Darren Sammy's boys the beat Bangladesh by 9 wickets at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.

It was a miserable Friday for the Bangladesh cricket team. Bangladeshi batsmen were not able to face the West Indies bowlers and lost all their wickets for a mere 58 runs in the 19th over of the innings.

The West Indies comfortably achieved this target for the loss of only 1 wicket in 12.2 overs.

The game started at 2 pm in the afternoon. Shakib Al Hasan, the captain of the Bangladesh team, decided to bat first after winning the toss. 4 of Bangladesh's batsmen - Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shafiul Islam and Rubel Hassan - returned to the pavilion for a duck. The highest scorer was Zunaed Siddique, who hit 4 fours and scored 25 runs off 27 balls.

Darren Sammy and Kemar Roach of West Indies both took 3 wickets each.

West Indies lost the wicket of their opener Devon Smith in the 6th over when the score was 29 runs. From there, Chris Gayle and Darren Bravo took their team to victory. Chris hit 6 fours in a personal score of 37 from 26 balls.

Karen Roach was declared man of the match.

Later, in a shameful follow-up, angry fans pelleted stones at the bus carrying players of the West Indies team. Mustafa Kamal, the president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board apologized and ordered an investigation into the incident.

03-03-11In what is being viewed as the biggest upset of ICC Cricket World Cup 2010 so far, Ireland beat England by 3 wickets at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium (Karnataka State Cricket Association Stadium) at Bengaluru on 02-Mar-2011.

The match started with England deciding to bat first after Andrew Strass the English skipper won the toss. England setup a okay target of 327 for the loss of 8 wickets in 50 overs. Jonathan Trott was the top scorer of the English side with 92 runs to his credit.

Ireland had a poor start. It lost the wicket of its Captain, William Porterfield, in the very first ball of the inning, The scene was not much in their favuor when they lost their 5th wicket at 111 in the 25th over of the game.

Then came in Kevin O'Brien and changed the direction of the game. He hit the English bowlers good and hard, for 13 fours and 6 sixes and scored 113 in just 63 balls.

Ireland achieved its target and won the game by the first ball of the 50th over. Kevin O'Brien was declared man of the match.

23-02-11Pakistan gets ready for its first match in ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The team will be combating Kenya, which will be playing its second match of the event.

The match is scheduled to start at 14:30 and will be played in Sri Lanka's Mahindra Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium at Hambantota.

Pakistan is a strong side lead by Shahid Afridi. It is one of the contenders vying for a slot in the quarter finals.

Kenya had played a miserable first match in Chennai against New Zealand. Kenya lost that match by 10 wickets. It had batted first and was all out for 69 runs in less than 24 overs.

Given Kenya's display against New Zealand, Pakistan is being the favorite for today's match. This match will be the second game to be played at the Mahindra Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium in Hambantota. The first match at this venue was played between Sri Lanka and Canada on 20-Feb-2011.

22-02-11Andrew Strass led the English team to a victory against The Netherlands at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Tuesday 22-Feb-2011 in the 5th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

Netherlands had set a decent target of 292 for the opponents for the loss of 6 wickets. The highlight of the Dutch batting was century by Ryan ten Doeschate.

Ryan ten Doeschate was declared the Man of the Match. He scored 119 runs in 110 balls after hitting 9 fours and 3 sixes.

England was able to achieve the target in the 49th over. It scored 296 at the loss of 4 wickets in 48.4.

Andrew Strass played a captain's innings to score 88 runs in 83 balls. His comfortable start allowed his team to seal a close victory in the 49th over.

22-02-11Ricky Ponting has apologized for his unruly behaviour when he was declared runout in the match against Zimbabwe on Monday.

The incident happened on Monday during the 4th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. In the 33rd over of the first innings, Ricky Ponting was given runout. He had gone for a second run, but a throw from Clarke Mpofu reached the stumps before he could reach the crease.

Ricky Ponting, obviously in a fit of rage, threw his gloves at a LCD television set in the dressing room and damaged it. The behaviour from a captain of a cricket team is specially demeaning.

Australia had won that match against Zimbabwe by 91 runs.

It is learnt that the captain of Australian team has since then apologised. A spokesman of the team had come forward with a statement that Ponting had accidentally damaged the television set in the dressing room.

Now it remains to be seen how the International Cricket Council reacts to the incident.

10-10-10The franchisees Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals of Indian Premier League (IPL) are set to loose their IPL licences. If the decision taken, today, by the board comes into effect, these two teams may not play in IPL 4, or any other IPL event after today.

The board has claimed that the ownership structure of the two teams were changed without proper sanctions. The board also said that it had found differences in the names of the original bidders and those who eventually signed the agreement.

Besides these two teams, notice has been issued to the Kochi team asking it to resolve its internal disputes within 10 days.

The entire Indian Premier League has been in limelight for the wrong reasons since early this year. After the bidding for 2 new teams for IPL, the former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor lost his ministership over a controversy related to ownership of Kochi team.

The controversy did not stop, allegations of financial irregularities caught steam and resulted in the suspension of Lalit Modi from the stewardship of the IPL committee.

19-09-10The credibility of cricket has taken a major hit once again. Even as the hue and cry over the revelations of spot fixing during the 1st ODI had just begun to subside, suspicion of spot fixing has once again engulfed the game with reports of rigging the third one-day international (ODI) between England and Pakistan make it to the press.

The Sun a British newspaper has claimed that the 3rd ODI match between England and Pakistan at The Oval on Friday 17 September 2010 was fixed by illegal bookies from Indian and Dubai. The report said, that the undercover team of The Sun had passed the details to the ICC inspectors before the match began.

ICC has said that it has launched an investigation into the activities that took place during the 3rd ODI.

ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat said: "A source informed The Sun newspaper that a certain scoring pattern would emerge during certain stages of the match and, broadly speaking, that information appeared to be correct.

Haroon Lorgat further said "We thank The Sun newspaper for its information and cooperation in this regard and we will work with its staff and sources to ensure the full truth surrounding this match is ascertained."

ICC has always maintained all along that it has a policy of zero-tolerance to corruption in cricket. Now, it is time for apex cricket body prove that it really stands by this policy.